Confidence Among IT Workers Unchanged in Q1 2014

jobs & the economy

May 13, 2014

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IT workers’ confidence has held consistently over the last several months. For the third consecutive quarter, the Randstad Technologies Employee Confidence Index held a rating at or above 60.0. And, IT workers still remain one of the most confident sectors surveyed for Randstad by Harris Poll, third only to Finance & Accounting (64.3) and Engineering (63.6) in the first quarter of 2014.

Workplace Trends

The confidence level of today’s IT professionals could very well be linked to their increasing salaries. According to a recent Dice report, the average U.S. salary for a technical professional increased from $85,619 in 2012 to $87,811 in 2013.

According to the same Dice report, professionals with specialization in big data-related languages garnered the highest paying jobs in IT:

At the beginning of the year, TechRepublic spoke with several IT executives and technical recruiters to confirm what all industry trends were leading to: top jobs for 2014 will be big data, mobile, cloud and security. But, new this year, is the way companies hire their technical talent.

“One of the biggest trends in 2014 will be the continued uptick in demand for technical talent, but more broadly across the entire economy, and not just siloed in its own ‘tech’ sector,” said Pete Kazanjy, co-founder of TalentBin. “Technology is ceasing to be a ‘sector’ on its own, and is instead becoming more critical in every industry.”

From the Desk of Bob Dickey

“Employees in the information technology industry are confident in all aspects of their career. Namely, this quarter, they’ve shown a substantial increase in confidence in the overall economy—a good sign that we hope remains.”

According to the survey conducted for Randstad by Harris Poll among over 3,200 U.S. workers in Q1 of 2014, more than one-third of technology workers, or 35 percent, believe there are more jobs available this quarter – and they are largely right. When you consider that technology is seeping into nearly every sector and becoming more critical in every industry, there is a growing demand for technical talent to drive technology-based processes. Social media continues to explode, cloud computing remains a huge focus for companies and mobile technology is the new norm for a lot of business interactions.

All of these trends mean promising careers and job opportunities for IT employees who possess skills within data programming/administration, mobile development and security. Growth within the technology sector is projected to continue at a steady pace for the foreseeable future. In fact, according to the U.S. News and World Report’s Best Jobs 2014, by 2022 it is projected that over 140,000 new software developer positions alone will be added. We believe the industry is on pace to match or exceed growth rates like this in a variety of positions spanning the gamut of computer systems analysts to web developers and computer programmers.

Methodology
This survey was conducted online within the United States by Harris Poll on behalf of Randstad Technologies from January 6-8, February 3-5 and March 3-5, 2014 among 3,210 adults ages 18 and older, of which 174 are employed in IT. This online survey is not based on a probability sample and therefore no estimate of theoretical sampling error can be calculated. For complete survey methodology, including weighting variables, please contact lesly.cardec@randstadusa.com.

About the Randstad Technologies Employment Report
This quarterly Randstad Technologies Employment Report provides a snapshot of the latest workforce trends among information technology professionals across the country. Three key indices are measured: the IT Job Security Index, which captures how likely respondents think it is that they will lose their job or that their job will be eliminated in the next 12 months; the IT Job Transition Index, which captures how likely respondents are to look for a new job in the next 12 months; and the Employee Confidence Index that measures employees’ overall confidence in the economy, their employer and their ability to find other employment.

The Employee Confidence Index is calculated from the results of four components that reflect these aspects of employee confidence. For each component item a ‘score’ is calculated by taking the difference of the percentage of positive responses and the percentage of negative responses. These four scores are then averaged to indicate an overall level of employee confidence and is then scaled from 0 (no confidence) to 100 (complete confidence). A reading above 50 indicates a positive confidence level.

About Randstad Technologies
Randstad Technologies has been connecting top companies around the globe with the expert technology talent and solutions that drives their success since 1984. Our deep industry expertise and full-service capabilities—Recruitment, Consulting, Projects, and Outsourcing—enable organizations to be agile, productive, and ahead in the field with their wide network of specialists and flexible solutions.